The grease beneath my wings
One more piece of the filmmaking puzzle is the Sales Agent. But who are these mysterious agents who can make or break a film's success? Let's get into it.
I've been knee-deep in film industry blogs lately, and let me tell you, the ways a film can flop are endless. You know how if you try to keep a car running without any oil, it's gonna sputter and seize up eventually? Well, imagine that the car is a metaphor for your film, but instead of a car, it’s actually a plane and it’s 33,000 feet above the earth and this metal tube with fins is packed to the gills with all your friends and family who have invested in you and your filmmaker dream (hey, it *is* a dream, right?).
So what's the oil in this metaphor? The Sales Agent, baby.
Of the few ways an independent film can succeed, almost all of them have a Sales Agent (or multiple ones) who have been instrumental in getting the film funded and seen by the movers and shakers who are looking to buy new projects.
To shift the oil metaphor a bit, Sales Agents are the grease in the gears between the creative cogs and the fine-tuned executive suite. The execs (generally) don’t care as much about the creative side of the filmmaking world. They don’t need to know, nor do they want to know, the slick color grading and amazing sound mix you dumped hundred grand into or how many vfx shots you had. I mean, those things are cool and all, they just don’t matter to the business suite.
All they care about is, will this film help me get my slate into the black? How do I buy enough product to show my boss I’ve been kicking ass this year so they’ll give me that bonus and a possible promotion?
And because they’ve dealt with enough flaky, uninformed creatives in their time, the last person they want to deal with is the filmmaker or the newbie producer. It’s a lot easier to deal with your existing network, or grow a network through referrals. That’s where the Sales Agent comes in.
They are the miracle workers of the industry. They'll schmooze with distributors, TV networks, airlines, and hotel chains to hawk your film to them. And they've got connections that would make even the most well-connected filmmaker blush with envy. They are trusted by the execs because they all speak the same language. Creatives, meanwhile, flounder in these situations if they ever get lucky enough to land a meeting. Because the creatives rarely have the same business training—they’ve been working so hard on mastering their art, they forgot that filmmaking is largely a business. And so there’s a perpetual disconnect between the people MAKING the films and the people BUYING the films.
Of course, you could always try to take the creative distribution path and upload your film to every VOD platform out there and bypass the Sales Agent and executive class in hopes that your film will be one of the millions uploaded every year. Good luck with that approach.
Frankly speaking: why bother when you can pay someone else to do it for you? Sales agents will take your film to film markets all over the world, selling it in bulk or as a standalone product depending on how hot it is on the festival circuit or how many washed-up celebs you've got in your cast. I don’t mean to sound mean-spirited or cynical—but these are calculations you, the indie producer—must think about as you’re figuring out just how to finance your picture.
Now, let's be clear—a sales agent's job isn't to promote your film. Nope, they're solely focused on making sure they get the fattest paycheck possible. And the better your film does, the more money they rake in. It's a win-win... for them at least. This is where it pays to familiarize yourself with the deal memo and to ensure you aren’t being taken advantage of.
Amid all the reading, I’ve been compiling Sales Agent information in my pursuit of cracking the door open on this crazy town. I have been developing a contact list of Sales Agents. Once I get something substantial together, I’ll be happy to share with any of my readers who are looking for that info for their own projects. Reach out to me if that is something that interests you.
We’re Kickstarting something
I know, I know—another thing?? Okay, but hear me out.
In roughly one month we will be launching a crowdfunding campaign to raise $25,000 in financing to shoot what we hope will be our final short film before we move fully into feature filmmaking.
This will be our most audacious, ambitious horror film, and it’s called Frigid. This is the film that will put all the skills and creative ingenuity we've gained over the past three shorts (The Rickety Man, Lucid, and The Undoing) into a complete package that will blow everyone's socks off from a story and terror standpoint. Our goal is to give you something that will resonate in your brains.
And we think we may have cracked the code on this one.
We've already begun assembling an incredible team, including an award-winning actress, a killer director of photography, and we have some world class artists working in capacity as editor, production designer, and line producer. The script is finalized and we've already begun pre-production, including location scouting.
What we need, and we hope you'll be interested in providing, is a strong showing of financial support. Because you’ve been supportive of our efforts with our other films, I wanted to offer you all a first crack at a top spot on our team on this new venture.
We're looking for Executive Producers, Co-Producers, and Associate Producers, and we have different pledge tiers for each of those positions, along with some amazing perks, of course.
I’ll have more info available on request (we’re still putting together our campaign materials as we speak). But I wanted to put this in your inbox for you to consider. If you’re interested in financially supporting us, please contact me via email so I can get you into our private channel.
Can we count on your contribution to our Kickstarter when we launch at the beginning of May?
Even if you can't support us financially, we would love to be supported in other ways, including in spreading the word about the campaign (when it goes live) to all your friends and social contacts. Whatever you can do, we are honored to have you backing us.
That’s all for this week. I’m excited to share some Lucid feature stuff with you in the next week or two that I’m trying to finalize. Until then—
pax
Great entry as always, and as always I’m interested in every and all tangible information you can share. Thanks for everything, Jer 🙏